McCarron Wants Silence : Horse racing: Jockey remembers thinking about losing his rides on the horse of the year immediately after serious accident at Hollywood Park.

Tim Conway peeked around the curtain and saw Chris McCarron lying in his hospital bed. The jockey had a towel over his forehead and a rose on his chest. His eyes were closed. He was moaning softly. Truly a pathetic sight.

Can’t fool Dr. Dorf, though. Conway, the comedian who is one of McCarron’s closest friends, picked up the cue and slipped into a deadpan bedside baritone: “Is he gone yet? We need the bed.”

The moment was light, but the reality was grim. McCarron lay temporarily helpless as a result of Sunday’s Hollywood Park spill and subsequent surgery. The 35-year-old rider broke his left thigh on impact with the ground, then broke his right forearm and right leg below the knee when a trailing horse trampled him.

Once past the initial shock of the accident, McCarron’s first thoughts in the emergency room that afternoon were of Sunday Silence. The reigning horse of the year was making his 1990 debut in the Californian that same day, taking the first step in what figured to be a rewarding season with McCarron aboard.

“Can’t they just strap me onto the black horse and let him carry me around?” McCarron protested.

Outside, McCarron’s wife Judy put up a brave front. She had arrived at the track just after Chris had gone down, turned around and headed for the hospital. Once convinced her husband would be all right, she turned to a friend and said, “I came out expecting a winner’s circle picture today, not X-rays.”

Even though McCarron had not seen the patrol tape view of the spill, his recollections were still vivid. He remembered the horse in front of him, ridden by Kent Desormeaux, breaking his left foreleg and falling. He recalled a flashing moment when he thought he could get past safely on the inside. But mostly he remembered his leg.

“When I finally stopped rolling, my left leg ended up bent out and back, with my left arm underneath,” McCarron said. “I took one look at it and yelled, ‘Oh, . . . !’

“But the funny thing was, it didn’t really hurt,” McCarron went on. “I guess my body was producing so much adrenaline that I couldn’t feel much. Then when the ambulance attendant got to me I heard her say, ‘I think we’ve got a compound fracture here.’ I didn’t want to look at the leg anymore if that was true.”

Fortunately, it was not. McCarron’s left thighbone broke in two about a third of the way down from his hip, but the bone did not break the skin. It was the same bone he shattered on Oct. 16, 1986, at Santa Anita.

Dan Capen, one of the orthopedic surgeons who pieced McCarron back together before, was initially concerned that this latest break might have been a result of a weakness in the repaired bone. He was relieved--in a manner of speaking--to find that the new damage was in no way related to the ’86 fractures.

“I think you could have 100 people fall off a horse the way Chris fell and almost all of them would break that leg in the same place,” said Capen, who assisted Dr. Doug Garland during McCarron’s surgery Monday.

Capen said he foresees no complications in McCarron’s rehabilitation, which will begin as soon as the surgical incisions heal. A stainless steel rod 15 inches long and about half an inch in diameter was inserted the length of the thighbone, and a smaller rod was placed along the larger bone in the right forearm. Capen has rigged up a special crutch to take the weight off the forearm when McCarron is moving again.

The jockey’s doctors also have prescribed a series of radiation treatments on the hip area to prevent bone growth in the muscle regions.

“It can happen after this type of procedure,” Capen said. “Not always, but if it does, it can restrict range of movement. This will be a low-dose X-ray treatment. Nothing like the dosage levels for cancer.”

While McCarron lay in his room at Centinela Hospital Medical Center, surrounded by a jungle of flower arrangements, speculation on his future continued to rage through the racing community. Sentiment was running about 50-50 that his latest injury would inspire him to retire.

Gary Stevens, who was riding alongside the horse that broke down under Desormeaux, considered his own recent history of serious injuries when thinking of McCarron. In 1985, Stevens suffered a separated shoulder and torn knee ligaments. In 1987 he broke an ankle. In 1989 he broke a wrist and was speared between the eyes by a broken plastic rail.

Before last week’s racing, Stevens was the leading money rider in the country and McCarron was second.

“Let’s put it this way,” Stevens said. “I wouldn’t blame Chris if he did retire. I can honestly say that if I get hurt again like I did in 1985, I would give it serious thought. I mean, there comes a time when you just have to stop and wonder about what you’re doing to your body.”

Trainer Tom Bunn, a former show horse rider, addressed the mental side of returning from any horse-related accident.

“I remember a bad spill I had in a show back East,” he said. “I hit my head on a rock when I fell. I was back riding in five days, but it was the strangest feeling. My hands would say, ‘Go,’ but my head would say, ‘Whoa.’ ”

Trainer Eddie Truman shattered his right foot and broke his right leg in a training accident several years ago and still walks with a distinctive limp. He hopes that McCarron’s latest setback will prompt the rider to consider a career in broadcasting.

“Chris could be such an asset to this sport behind the microphone, I almost hope he decides to hang it up now before he gets hurt again,” Truman said. “What more does he have to prove?”

Bill Shoemaker, who suffered a broken femur in 1968 and a crushed pelvis in 1969--then rode for another 20 years--admitted that retirement always crossed his mind whenever he was hurt.

“But then, by the time you’re all healed up, you’ve forgotten about the pain and you’re ready to go again,” Shoemaker said.

But Gary Jones, McCarron’s closest friend among the training colony, scoffed at any retirement talk.

“They don’t know Chris,” Jones said. “He’s got too many obligations, too much ability and too much desire to quit if he can still ride.”

That, of course, is the key. McCarron’s doctors optimistically say that a comeback in three months is not out of the question. Such a rapid recovery could put McCarron back aboard Sunday Silence in time for his defense of the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 27.

He pulled a similar trick in 1987, when he returned after five months on the ground, then rode Alysheba to victory in the Kentucky Derby six weeks later.

As far as McCarron is concerned, retirement is not a subject of serious discussion, unless there are complications in his recovery. He would rather ponder more immediate broadcasting possibilities while he recuperates, similar to the color commentary he did during the 1986 Breeders’ Cup for NBC.

“You suppose ABC needs me for the Belmont this Saturday?” McCarron said with a grin. “Too soon? OK, how about that August race for Sunday Silence and Easy Goer in Chicago?”

Horse Racing Notes

Gary Stevens was suspended by the Los Alamitos stewards for an incident at the start of a quarter horse race last Saturday night. “Maybe this is their way of saying, ‘Stay in your own neighborhood,’ ” said Stevens, who rode in the $233,000 Kindergarten the same evening. The five-day ban will cost him the mount on Patches in the Railbird Stakes on Saturday.